Klout is a service you either love or hate, and those who hate it are especially vocal about it. Not many of those who hate the site will take the time to do something fun with it, though.

Twitter's @TomScott is not that big a fan of Klout, and decided to have a go at making something to ape it via the Twitter API. Functionality for Facebook does not currently exist, but it could perhaps come in the future. In any case, this is his idea: a site to measure one's douchebaggery online, called Klouchebag. Mr. Scott doesn't like the system of picking a number out of a hat that Klout uses, and gleefully parodies it, as well as other details about the site. Users are measured across four main sections: Anger, Retweet Abuse (old style retweets), Social Apps (i.e. Foursquare), and English misuse. These four grades come together to give you a rating.

Tom Scott provides an interesting explanation of the site, and how he managed to code it in a few hours after coming up with the idea. A good internet joke spreads like wildfire, and this might be the next best thing. Tom makes the argument that one's Klout score is like search engine optimization for yourself, and is not a big deal at all. For the sake of my own amusement, I decided to take a snap of my score, just to see my Klouchebaggery for myself. Apparently I'm not much of a klouche, but the site can be inaccurate at times.

I took a skim through my own Twitter timeline to see what I could find, and decided that the second person I'd try it with was our own Jake Durasamy, co-creator of the Pokemon Liquid Crystal ROM.

Having tried some other followers, who I have chosen to avoid listing here, it seems that one of the higher ratings is around 60, which makes you "A Bit of a Douchebag". Over 70 and it's "Mostly Noise". Unfortunately I couldn't find a Twitter account spamming anything completely pointless. Feel free to give it a go and see how much of a klouche you are as well.